There is one and only one voice in Congress for a foreign policy of freedom, and it belongs to Ron Paul, who has stood alone for freedom for many years. Ron is the seemingly impossible: a voice for reason and truth in a den of thieves.
A Foreign Policy of Freedom is his 372-page manifesto, a collection of inspired statements to the House of Representatives that show him to be the most consistent and morally responsible politician, perhaps, in the whole of American history.
Recently, you might have heard Ron condemning foreign aid, our wars in the Middle East and Africa, our vast and needlessly growing military budgets, bombings of this country and that, troops in most countries in the world, and all the other meddlesome activities of the US empire. This foreign policy, Congressman Paul has pointed out, is contrary to American ideals, diminishes American liberty, and ends up making worse the very problems it seeks to alleviate.
But did you know that Ron has been delivering this message through thick and thin from his first day in Congress in 1976 until the present day? That's 35 years of prophetic warnings, 35 years of courageous stands against the tide, 35 years of being proven right by subsequent events. There are no flip-flops, backpedals, regrets, or cover-ups. He has told the truth again and again, no matter what it cost him.
In the middle of the Cold War, he decried the endless streams of subsidies from the United States to communist governments. At the same time, he stood firm against aid to insurgents seeking to overthrow those regimes. He sensibly pointed out that the Soviet Union would collapse if it had to face financial reality, and that an end to US aid would make that possible. He has been a stickler on the power of the presidency, refusing to grant the president authority to start wars without congressional approval.
In many ways, this book is a history of a quarter century of folly, told by a man who saw what others did not — and had the temerity to state his view publicly. No voice for peace has been as consistent in the demand that government stop its intervention across the board. No supporter of free markets has been so determined to apply the logic of liberty to all aspects of foreign policy.
This book makes Ron Paul's place in history. There has never been anything so forthright, truth telling, and ultimately devastating from a US politician.
